Chicken Tofu Bento (286)

This has been one fantastically exciting week for me. First of all, I finally got a call to do some background work for LOST. All I can really say is that I loved it, I’d do it again in a heartbeat, and that the other extras I met there were great fun to hang around with. Last night I watched a bit of the pilot episode again (since it’s the only season I have on DVD) and it was so funny how different it looks to me now. And it’s different in a good way, I totally appreciate the show more! It’ll be 10x more exciting to actually see Season 6 when it airs next year!!

This is my lunch for today, which I purposely made non-cutesy for all my new visitors arriving as a result of my name and blog being mentioned in an article by Samantha Storey of the New York Times, Bento Boxes Win Lunch Fans! Woohoo! It’s so exciting! It’s definitely one of the biggest pieces I’ve seen on the online bento community outside of Japan. My hope is that my lunch today will help draw new people into the wonderful world of bento by showing that with just a bit of creative arranging, your lunch can take on a whole new light.

This bento is made from leftovers and some things I just have in my fridge. It took me about 10 minutes to put together, not counting lazy time where I checked email, stared at fridge contents for breakfast, etc. Grandma J made chicken tofu last night and I simply took some with a bit of hapa rice (white/brown blend) in a Tupperware. This morning I moved it to a bento box, using chopsticks to arrange everything neatly together in the main compartment.

As you can see, I used one of the little side dish sections to add green beans, baby carrot sticks, and a grape tomato. The bottom of this section is lined with the bottoms of the green beans to give everything a bit more height, then the green bean tips were placed into the back corner. The grape tomato is simply placed next to them and the baby carrot sticks are made from just two baby carrots. What I do for these is I cut the rounded tips off, then slice it in half, then cut the halves into sticks. They add a nice, bright splash of color and are so easy to make.

The other side contains three types of pickled veggies that I purchase ready-made at the market. The yellow is takuan, or pickled daikon. The purple stuff is pickled eggplant and cucumbers. The green pickles are sliced, pickled cucumbers.

Since I’m still doing the KUT kickboxing program, I brought a big peach and some dried marlin my aunty gave me. I’ll half the peach and the marlin and eat it as snacks in the morning and afternoon.

After I left the Lost set yesterday, I headed to Pearlridge Borders to find out if they sold the New York Times. It turned out that they didn’t, but Starbucks had three copies left so I bought all of them. I’d have gone to another Starbucks to buy more, except I couldn’t think of another nearby Starbucks and the darned things cost 2 bucks each.

Woo, yay, celebration, cheers! I have to admit I was a bit sad that I wasn’t asked for photos, but the blog mention cheered me right back up. Big mahalos to Samantha Storey for that! <3